nuWho

[avevale_intelligencer]

Pretty much exactly the diametrical opposite of everything I ever watched Doctor Who for.

Also, the Weeping Angels didn't make sense when he first wrote them, and they don't make sense now.

And that's all I'm going to say about it..

Comments

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Pretty much exactly the diametrical opposite of everything I ever watched Doctor Who for.

What, happy endings? [/semi-sarcasm]

The Weeping Angels made more sense this time than they did in their previous appearance, though I still don't like them, either.

One note: it appears that the 1930s were a bad decade for New York, as far as alien incursions go. (See also the Empire State Building, completed 1931.)

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Nothing happy about it I saw. Usual blatant emotional whipsawing, the Doctor being portrayed as a "psychopath" who needs a keeper and who has to be protected from seeing people age (he is not Peter frodding Pan, for gods sake--he's supposed to be nine hundred years old, he's seen people age), and not a shred of logic, dignity or wit to be found in it.

Sending someone backwards in time *creates* temporal energy? And in a city of x million people, a city that famously never sleeps (the Doctor even quoted that line!), Lady Liberty gets off her pedestal, wades ashore and clomps down the street shaking the ground to pull faces at people and nobody looks up??? As depicted, the Angels are implausible, inconsistent and nonsensical. And yet Moffat keeps on dragging them out again.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

I'd call it a happy ending for the Ponds. They got to be together, and presumably happily so, until their end. Hence "semi"

As for the Doctor, he is in some ways exactly Peter F Pan. River had it spang on, when she described him as twelve years old emotionally. There's a lot of good in that, and he tries hard to get past the not-so-good bit (such as jealousy and naivete), but they're still there. (The Doctor is a serious mix of 12 and 1200 -- which is closer to his age now, in canon --in that he has a HUGE understanding of what's going on around him even when he's in utter denial. Which he usually gets over, though not always in time to do anything about it.)

Won't and can't argue with your second graf. I agree completely. (Would have been nice to see some of the OTHER canonical NYC statuary come to life as Angels, instead.)

And, one final question: why should ANYONE fear statues of Vorlons, anyway> :-)

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

When the Doctor was the Doctor, he was nothing remotely like Peter Pan. He was (for the most part, and always capable of being) the grown-up. He was proof, to me as a child, that it was possible to *be* a grown-up and still enjoy life. This one might be capable of being grown-up, but is constantly treated as a child by those around him in a way that would have been grotesque and obscene if any of the previous companions (up as far as Ace) had done it to their Doctors.
That is one of the many reasons why nuWho bothers me so much; this Doctor is not that Doctor, never was and never could be, but everyone pretends that they're the same person.

I'm just glad it's over now for a while.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Some Companions DID treat the Doctor that way (Romana I, for example) while others were dismissive in other ways (Aric, anyone?). That said, some of the criticism of the Doctor (within the show's boundaries) is deserved, while some of the critics (notably that pampered puss Amy) can just shut up. (I exempt Rory, for the most part, because he's consistently demonstrated what he's about and put himself on the line for it. His critiques of the Doctor tend to be right on.)

You're correct in one key point: this is not the same Doctor in some very key ways, and that's been made clear in canon. The explanation there is Time Lord-sized PTSD; I'm not sure it applies quite so thoroughly now. Then again, the Doctor was ALWAYS a different person after regenerating; sadly, that's how we got Five and Six, both of whom I rate as inferior to Nine and Ten.

I've said, and will say again, that I dislike Matt Smith as the Doctor because he cannot bring the gravitas the Doctor needs. A large swath of the blame, if any, goes to the writers and especially the producers. I do have lots of gripes, but find the show watchable, for the most part, though far less so since Moffatt took over. I suspect his vision of the Doctor is very different from mine, and certainly from yours, and he could use to be demoted to writer with a sane showrunner editing him.

[michael cule (from livejournal.com)]

Well, the idea that the Angels possess statuary rather than being creatures that happen to have bodies that look like statuary is an improvement if a minor one. The idea that Lady Liberty would go walkabout is just silly but it all happened in a paradox so it didn't really happen so that's all right isn't it?

(I'm afraid that probably is how the scriptwriters are thinking.)

And given the tendency of nuWho writers to want to mechanically bash on our heartstrings, I'd say the Pond/Williams family has had a merciful ending to their saga, living out their lives in early 20th century New York and never seeing the Doctor again is far from the horrid ways I was anticipating them writing out the characters.